Going their own ways

April 03, 2006

Bargaining to create a new Israeli government officially begins this week. The speed of the negotiations with smaller parties and the eventual size of the governing coalition will be the first signal of how successful Ehud Olmert might be in the central issue of the election, which he framed as setting Israel's permanent border with the West Bank.

That is the intention of Olmert's Kadima Party, a goal set by its founder, Ariel Sharon, and one that Olmert wants to accomplish within the next four years. With lip service still paid to the "road map" and the peace process, the real movement on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide is a vigorous unilateralism.

For the next few weeks, Olmert will do serious haggling over ministries and budgets with potential partners from religious groups such as Shas and United Torah Judaism to the left-leaning Labor Party and the Pensioner's Party, a single-issue newcomer.

Likud and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, were dismissed by the voters, a healthy sign that even the election of Hamas would not provoke Israelis toward more extreme policies. And while last week's election fell short of producing the number of parliament seats that Kadima had hoped for, it was still clear that a coalition, even a fragile one, with the Labor Party and with other religious and special-interest parties could continue down the path of unilateral disengagement that began in Gaza.

Olmert's boundary plan trails roughly the old 1967 border but balloons out significantly to include several very large Jewish settler blocs. Under the plan, other Israeli settlements on the West Bank would be dismantled, the settlers encouraged or eventually forced to relocate. It would be a far larger and much more costly effort than in Gaza and would mean uprooting tens of thousands of settlers.

The unilateral approach will trouble some people. There may be no international acceptance of Israel's de facto boundary, though Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has suggested that the U.S. would not rule out recognizing, to use Sharon's phrase, the "facts on the ground," and accepting Israel's unilaterally declared border.

To steal from Winston Churchill's reflection on democracy, Kadima's plan may be the worst possible solution--except for all the others that have been tried.

That seems particularly true in light of what's going on in Palestinian politics. The Hamas victory--its government was officially installed last week--showed that Palestinians dearly want to end Yasser Arafat's legacy of corruption and inept rule. Now, however, they have two power centers, with President Mahmoud Abbas saying he is willing to negotiate and the Hamas leaders still unwilling to take any conciliatory steps, at least publicly, toward Israel.

There is the irony to all this. With Arafat in control, the U.S. and Israel wanted to reduce his singular hold on leadership and see more power sharing with other Palestinian leaders. Well, power-sharing is what we have now.

Hamas has not budged on its refusal to recognize Israel, renounce violence or accept prior agreements. Hamas, at least, has not created any new tension in its few days in power. But it seems highly unlikely it will ever negotiate with Israel.

So, in the paradox of Middle East politics, the unilateral approach--even if stalemate and sheer exhaustion prompted it--may create a new opportunity.